The Tagger
by bananananafofana
Summary: Aaron Womble is just your not so average not even close to normal guy that might explain why he wakes up dangling from a climbing rope 15 ft above the ground in a not so abandoned alleyway.
1. Prolouge

Prologue

Have you ever wondered why people vandalized things? It's because it's freaking fun! You've never felt the thrill of trouble, the excitement of running, or the accomplishment of a perfect tag. The beautiful and unique design and the vibrant colors it produces. No one who hasn't done it would understand…

I felt a bullet blow back the hairs on my neck. I guess soldiers would say the same thing about themselves. I always wondered why when the characters in a book were in a life threatening situation they would always think 'what could have happened to make this possible?' well I guess I could understand why they did that now. Because everyone needs recollection…

_**Almost 6 hours earlier**_

I woke from my still not peaceful sleep I had been having dreams of blood, gore, and explosions. I sat up and hit my head on the top of my still too small bunk bed. I looked at my still too loud alarm clock and saw that it was 5:30 AM it was just getting bright and soon with the sunrise would be blinding.

I crawled out and stretched with a couple of pops following. Why, you might ask, would a 16 year old boy-soon to be man- be waking up at 5:30 on a Saturday morning? Because there is business to be done.

I called my friend Billy and then I called my friend Austin.

Anyways, we all met up at the supermarket to buy the supplies. When we got in there I led the conversation.

"Billy, checklist!"

He pulled out a notepad and put a big check.

"Check!"

Billy looked at me expectedly waiting. He had green eyes and cropped dirty blonde hair.

"Austin, money!"

"Check!"

Austin looked at me with a wad of cash in between his fingers. His eyes a dark blue shade and curly black hair down to the middle of his neck.

"Good. Let's get shoppin'!"

My name is Aaron and my eyes are a light gray and my hair is straight down to the bottom of my neck.

Austin was the tallest and strongest, Billy was somewhere in between, and I was the same height as billy but pastier and weaker. seemingly emacicated.

Billy started going through the list.

"Alright guys after last weekend we ran out of supplies so, we're going to need lightweight jackets, pants, hiking boots, Balaclavas (ski mask), snowboarding goggles, climbing ropes, and 12 cans of spray paint."

I spoke up.

"You know guys, I think I'm going to go on another ninja kick so, who else thinks we should get karate robes?"

"You're not going on another ninja kick." Ah, sometimes Austin's as monotone as an elcor's voice was refreshing. For some reason.

"Alright fine! Billy, you're on jackets and pants. Austin you get balaclavas and goggles. I'll get the boots and rope. Move out!

It took about an hour to find and get everything. Billy chose a red jacket that said 'Like a Boss' with green pants Austin chose a Grey jacket with blue pants. I chose a Black jacket with black pants-I'm not emo! Everyone keeps saying that!- Weird what we chose I know but it's not about style or being cool it's about what we like.

We all had solid black balaclavas and the same colored hiking boots. We also bought reflective snowboarding goggles that matched the color of our eyes.

"We're going to look badass man."

**End of Prolouge **


	2. Chapter 1 We've got a coaster

CH 1 we've got a coaster….

We met up a few hours later at the train station after getting some rest.

We once again went through a checklist.

I carried the climbing rope, Billy carried our paint masks, and Austin divided the spray paint between all of us.

I walked over to a train that wasn't tagged yet and called them over.

"Guys let's get this one!" I yelled at them.

I boosted Billy up, then Austin, then Austin pulled me up. I looked over the edge, I'd say we were about 15 feet off the ground maybe 10 at least.

"Alright gentlemen, hook up."

I took out the climbing rope that was next to my laptop (Whenever we did a job I'd always get bored in between so I would take it out and play on it) and tied it on to the hook on the middle of the boxcar and then I handed everyone a end with a clamp on it, we all clamped it on to the belt loops on our pants.

We then rappelled down to the halfway point on the car and got to work.

We were about 30 minutes into it and things were going smoothly. We were all taking a break on top of the train and I was about to get out my laptop when the train jerked us suddenly backwards. Now I was never all for safety but if you're standing on top of a 15 foot box car you're going to want some support right? Well unfortunately for me my support just so happens to be dangling me above the slowly speeding ground choking me to death. Not fun.

They were screaming for me trying to pull me back up but just making the rope tighter. In 1 minute I was getting very lightheaded and gasping for breath. 30 seconds later I opened my eyes and suddenly noticed that we must have 'Hit 88 MPH Doc!' because I'm pretty sure that pretty flowers hitting your leg isn't supposed to hurt, I also noticed that the ground isn't supposed to be moving.

They were still pulling and I was still dying. I used my little amount of strength to look up and noticed a curved bridge coming up, a sign read 'warning 15 MPH speed limit. As bender from futurama would say 'well… we're boned.'

We must have hit the curb because I now noticed we were upside down and flipping. Between the flips I got a gasp of air and saw that my two current best and only friends were flailing their way through the open air. The one thing that really got my attention though was the six giant oil cylinders filled with explosive death.

The famous last words.

"I'll be dead before I hit the ground…"

The last thing I saw was a blinding light and the last thing I felt an incredible heat…


	3. Chapter 2 Just Haaaanngin' out

CH 2 just haannngin' out…

I felt pain. EVERYWHERE. I could barely open my eyes. I noticed I had tunnel vision. My neck was being pushed inward, I guess I was still hanging. I looked at my surroundings a small alleyway with grass as the floor, also two awkward little lumps in opposite corners of the alley both unconscious. I froze.

What the FUCK is THAT? A robotic looking figure, flashlight head…. Well I'm definitely dead.

Looks like I'm in a self insert. Damn you mass effect and your popularity!

Oh right being strangled to death. The geth was getting closer. This is my chance. With what little strength I had left I pulled out my multitool and cut the rope. A loud satisfying snap burst into the air and the geth looked up to see me land right on top of him.

By the time I had landed I realized the 10 foot height I was at before had almost doubled. I landed with a sickening crunch on top of it. Its legs were bent to an awkward angle and it was whirring with a high pitched noise.

Before it could try anything I jabbed my multitool into it multiple times until all the noise stopped. By the time I was done its white blood was on my face and several pieces of its head were scattered. I'm not even going to go into all the jokes THEY would make about what's on my face right now.

"Duuuude…"

I snapped my head in one of the lumps direction. It was Billy.

"That was fucking awesome!"

I tried to say something back but… I couldn't talk. I tried again and again even whispering it but, nothing.

It felt like the time I had gone into shock when I messed up my ankle and couldn't talk without my voice cracking in a whisper.

But this was bad. I'm mute.

He cocked his head to the side putting the puzzle together in his head. He figured it out. Then he starting putting together a much bigger puzzle. Where we were. I saw Austin get up and go through the same process.

Billy crossed the finish line milliseconds in front of Austin. They talked at the same time.

"Fuck."

"Well shit."

There was a chance that none of this was real, and that right now in reality the milk I drank this morning was spoiled and that I was currently flailing around on the floor of isle 8 of the supermarket.

Austin started repeating to himself, "If you can't feel it it isn't real."

I second that. I punched him as hard as I could in the chest.

I would have asked him if he felt it if 1: I could still talk. Or 2: I wasn't currently grimacing while arranging the bones in my hand back into the correct positions. I might have to work on getting up strength.

This is my new reality.

Well lets go die!

**End of CH 2**


	4. Chapter 3 Couldn't save a life

CH 3 Couldn't save a life

I cautiously approached the exit to the alley hoping that there was no more surprise Geth.

My hopes felt liked they had just been mugged, stabbed in the balls, and left to writhe in a dark alley. Around the corner there were at least half a dozen Geth. Fuck my past life, this one, and the next. I saw 3 figures in the distance coming up behind the Geth. It had to be Shepard's group.

As soon as the shooting started I motioned for my friends to follow me and we crouch ran from cover to cover. Then we made a mad dash to the next area. I heard a grunt and turned around to see Austin curled up on the ground. He must have gotten hit by a stray bullet.

I ran back over to him. I dragged him with my good hand to the next piece of cover and waved Billy over. He was bleeding from his stomach. There was a blood trail from where I had dragged him. I pointed to his legs and Billy grabbed them then I grabbed his arms.

Both of us together could barely get him off the ground. We were on Eden Prime so the place where the doctors are should be… right there! We put him down next to the door and started knocking on it as loud as we could. Billy started screaming at them.

"Open the door! Please, open the damned door!"

The door slid open so we grabbed Austin and got in. They locked it behind us.

"Please you have to help, our friend was shot!" Billy continued to scream at them.

The crazy doctor was just standing in the corner, the other one approached us.

"I'm sorry but we can't do much, we're low on supplies as it is. The best we can do is TRY to stop the bleeding. That's it."

I put Austin on the table in the middle of the room and helped Billy put pressure on the wound. He was bleeding heavily. I didn't have the heart to tell him he wasn't going to make it or the vocal cords. Austin looked at me.

"Well guys, I didn't make it very far did I huh?"

Billy started shaking. Austin said his last words.

"This… sucks."

His body went limp, he shuddered, and… that was it.

**End Of CH 3**


	5. Chapter 4 Prothean Beacons For Dummies

CH 4 Prothean Beacons For Dummies

He was dead, and I had never been more furious or raging before. Billy had given up shaking and just started sobbing. Me? I just stared , I was completely shell-shocked. Then I knew what we had to do. I grabbed Billy and ran out the door, we had to get to the spaceport where the beacon was, we could meet Shepard there.

We were approaching an overlook of the next area, the spaceport must be right past it. The area was guarded by many Geth, no room to just run through. Billy looked at me and whispered, "Metal Gear time." I almost laughed despite the situation but I just nodded instead. He wouldn't be able to see a smile through my mask anyway. I wouldn't smile either, not until I had gone through the stages of grief, and hopefully Billy was also going to be there to go through them with me.

It was a field about 50 meters long, and we had to go through it without being detected. It's like being in the best Tom Clancy game in mass effect. Like a game inside of a game inside of a TV show inside of a dream! Inception, BWAAAHH. I love laughing at my own jokes.

Anyway, we ran up to the first piece of cover. I waited for a gap in their patrol and went. I slid over the piece of rubble and sprinted for the next cover Billy following close behind. We crouched again I would say we were about 30 meters away from the exit. We repeated the same process and for some odd reason the piece of cover was the same distance as the last one. 10 meters now. I looked to Billy and counted down with my fingers. 3, 2, 1… I jumped the barrier and ran as fast as I could to the exit. It was too late to notice that my exit was a very steep hill. I turned around to see Billy still running he ran right into me and we both went tumbling down the hill.

I got up to realize my leg was fucked to hell. Billy was sitting over where he landed but he looked fine. He got up and came over to me. "You look fucked up man." He said to me. He grabbed me and threw my arm over his shoulder to support me. I felt like Captain Macmillan from call of duty 4.

After he dragged me to the spaceport I saw one of the bombs, I tapped on his shoulder to stop him. I crawled over to the timer. 5 minutes, if I remember correctly the timer gives you 4 minutes in the game so… we gotta go.

I motioned frantically to Billy and he picked me up we went as fast as we could to the beacon. Luckily and oddly running into no Geth. By the time we got to the beacon Shepard was right behind us.

"Hey! Who are you?" We turned around to see Shepard with Kaidan and Ashley. FemShep cool, The more you know.

"That's, not important right now." Billy answered for us.

Billy set me down near a small railing and went back to Shepard.

"No, I need to know who you are and how you got to the spaceport!"

"We just ran okay, aimlessly! No certain direction!" I had to give Billy credit for at least trying to cover our background.

"That can't be all there is to it." I heard Ashley chime in.

"Yeah something isn't right here; those don't look like colonist clothes." Kaidan also agreed.

This is bad they're already figuring us out. This won't end we-. Wait a second am I… moving? I looked at the beacon. It's glowing. Oh no this shouldn't be happening to me. I grabbed the railing and held as tight as I could with a broken hand. I needed help but Billy wasn't going to pay attention to me anytime soon. The pull was getting stronger I could feel it but so was there argument.

I couldn't hold on any longer so despite the pain in my hand I hit the railing as hard as I could and it resounded with a loud cling. All eyes went to the sound and then they saw me floating away towards the beacon.

I heard shepard say, "Move!" but it was already too late and I saw all of the vision. When I came back I was hanging upside down I heard a noise like something was charging.

I saw Billy run towards me "No!" he screamed then another flash of light, an incredible amount of heat, and intolerable amount of pain.

**End of CH 4**


	6. Chapter 5 A medical miracle

** CH 5** **A Medical Miracle**

_AN: Isn't It a bit sad that this is the longest chapter yet?_**  
**

My eyes suddenly opened but I didn't move my body. I had a few ideas of where I was currently at either they had left us on Eden Prime and we were both slowly dying or they had brought us on to the Normandy and we were slowly dying in the Med-Bay. You could tell which one I was silently cheering for. I ever so slowly moved my head to look around the room my biggest observation was that it was too damn bright to see anything.

I jerked my to the left once I felt my eyes melting. I realized I had jerked my head too hard because I was slowly rolling out of the bed. I tried to wriggle my way back to safety but it was too late.

**SMACK.**

What I can tell you is that; it hurt like hell, the noise I made when I hit the ground made it seem like every girl in the galaxy had been pumped full of testosterone, and I was hoping to God or whatever else that no one important to the plotline saw it. Apparently there was no one else in the room because I heard no laughter or footsteps.

I slowly tried to drag myself with my one good arm to the door making what I thought was the most pathetic noise in existence.

"Eh, Eh, Eh, Eh, Eh, Eh."

Right? Once I finally got to the door I climbed up it and hit the holographic button. Which I learned seconds later was not a good i-

**SMACK.**

Huh, I didn't think thoughts could be interrupted. Onto round two with the floor. I slowly looked around and noticed that every crewmember in the immediate area was staring at me. I started nonchalantly whistling and then slowly stood up on my wobbly legs and went back into the Med-Bay got into my bed face down and just waited for a certain doctor to show up and have me explain what happened.

"That's not healthy you know." And that must be her. I replied with a simple meh because it was all I could reply with at the moment. Despite that I turned over to sit up and face her. The crewmembers must have told her about my incident.

"Third degree burns to the left side of the face, a shattered leg from the knee down, a dislocated shoulder, and to top it off crushed vocal chords?" she looked at me with a face of what I thought was confusion, anger, and sympathy mixed together. I shrugged. She sighed.

"To steer away from the physical injuries I have seen very abnormal brain wave activity. Care to explain?"

I pointed to my throat hoping she would get that I couldn't talk.

"Yes, I know. I have outfitted you with an Omni-tool while you were out, it should have basic speech functions." This upset me; I didn't want to talk like Microsoft Sam for the rest of my life. As I was scrolling through the options suddenly, it hit me, I saw imports and exports then looked for my back pack and found it sitting on the floor next to me. I nearly ripped it open and pulled out my laptop, and turned it on. 5% battery, I better hurry. I went to storage and hit the icon to move it to an outside source. I looked back on the Omni-tool to see in imports one slot said unknown source and I smiled, hit the button, and waited. With my laptop slowly running out of battery it was nerve racking to just sit there waiting for the download to finish.

I heard a small ping from the Omni-tool and saw the screen on the laptop go black. For one terrifying second I thought that the download had been interrupted, but when I looked at the Omni-tool it said download complete I pumped my fist in the air.

I looked up to see a very confused doctor, "What was that?" she questioned me. I smiled because I had just downloaded everything from my laptop onto this Omni-tool. That means that I have every single file that was on my hard drive at the time. Mass effect, audio files, video files, the ENTIRE internet. Trillions of piles of data at my disposal, and I couldn't wait to dispose of it.

"Nothing Doctor just a bit of transfer." The Omni-tool made what would have sounded like jumbled words into what sounded like a proper sounding sentence.

"How did you do that? The only sounds you should be able to make are basic like screaming, moaning, growling." She looked befuddled. Befuddled, I always liked that word its fun to say. Befuddled. Bafuddled. Befuddeld. Heh.

Once I was done thinking to myself she was still waiting for an answer.

"Sorry, zoned out for a second."

"You're not answering the question." I sighed.

"Sorry. I copied the files from this... data storage device. So I can say pretty much every language that originated on earth. Does that answer your question? Doctor?"

She looked mildly surprised, "Alright well, I will tell the commander to meet you soon."

"I think I'm just going to sleep for a bit. Just wake me up when she's here." I started to lay down when she asked me another question.

"How did you know the commander was a woman?"

"I saw her briefly before I exploded."

"Basically you didn't ex-."

"Not listening. Powering down." I made a noise like a robot turning off.

"Okay…"She Walked out of the room. When I wanted to sleep I would sleep. I remember one time when I fell asleep writing on the board of my history classroom, 2 days of detention because I wouldn't wake up. Apparently everyone thought I was dead, and all of them were to idiotic to know how to check a pulse.

I had dodged her question about the brainwaves but whatever, sometime later.

SLEEP!

**End of CH 5**


End file.
